Agricultural Tour in Denmarh, Sweden, and Russia. 401 



travellings in foreign countries — that in few other parts of the world is 

 the practical culture of soils like ours more thoroughly understood 

 than in the British Islands — that in none has so great a breadth 

 of land been more scientifically and more expensively improved. 

 It may be that to certain parts of Holland and the Netherlands, 

 and to certain limited districts in Italy, a general superiority must 

 be conceded — and that in every country the traveller visits he will 

 observe something which he may wish to see imitated at home ; — 

 yet in few districts of Europe of large extent will he find united, 

 fields so green, hedge-rows so beautiful, stack-yards so neat — so 

 little waste and unenclosed land — so much artificially drained — 

 so much expensively manured — so many improved and profitable 

 cattle — and, generally, so much visible comfort and skill pervading 

 every branch of the practice of husbandry. This much seems 

 to be due to British Agriculture, even from those who see most 

 clearly its defects and are most anxious to remove them. 



Yet this difference in favour of our own island is to be ascribed 

 as much to the circumstances in which it has been placed, as to 

 the superior intelligence and industry of our population. It is 

 easy to write out a system of practical agriculture, by w^hich in a 

 given climate the largest amount of produce of this or that kind 

 may be raised on this or that variety of soil : but when this ab- 

 stract system comes to be put in practice in this or that country, it is 

 interesting to observe how much it must be altered and modified 

 by the circumstances of that country — how a very bad system of 

 farming theoretically, may be the only one which can be carried on 

 with profit — and may be best suited consequently to the circum- 

 stances of the district. 



We ought therefore to criticise leniently, and with some hesita- 

 tion, the agricultural methods we find in operation in other parts 

 of the world. The nature of the soil — the character of the cli- 

 mate — the economical condition of the country — the political re- 

 lations of the several classes of society — the tenure on which the 

 land is held — the relation which the number of the people bears 

 to the average production of food — the existence of a more ready 

 market, either domestic or foreign, for one or another kind of 

 produce ; — all have a necessary and important influence upon the 

 modes of culture. Hence the candid observer who is in no haste 

 to condemn, will often, when he becomes acquainted w^th all these 

 circumstances, find himself compelled to admit that rude methods 

 and practices, which are theoretically bad, are, if not the best, yet 

 the most prudent under all the circumstances of the place in 

 which he observes them, and such as he would himself in the 

 like case have adopted. 



Of these two truths — the general superiority of British agricul- 

 ture and agricultural enterprise, and the effect of circumstances in 

 modifying the modes of culture — I observed many illustrations 



